Posted 3:17 PM by Gene

Which reminds me, have mayors ALWAYS been fools? Not long ago I wended my way around our City Hall and noticed a statue ignored for decades -- a memorial to the "martyred" President McKinley. I can see a crowd of thousands at the dedication gathering around a mayor dressed to the eighteens let alone the nines, speaking in the most orotund of oratory, rolling his rrrrrrrrrrs and wearing the hoity-toitiest of British accents, "It behooooves me to say this grrrrrrand and grrrracious leaderrrrr, this patriOT of the ages, a man with the vision of Washington and the nobility of Lincoln, a man borne on the swelling chords of history to blahblahblah...." To be sure noble oratory was necessary with a monument adjacent a tower built with the noblest of graft. So that was one kind of mayor fool. Then came the Curley/Skeffingtons, who saw their job as robbing the candy store and giving the contents away to all the kids, and the grown-up kids too. Then came the REFORMERS, like the brave Richardson Dilworth, who seemed to live life in one perpetual tantrum as they tore down half their city centers for bland office buildings. Then came the type-A neighbahood hacks, the RIZZOS, the DALEY the ELDERS, those sitcom bosses who had all the schemes of Ralph Kramden and none of his lovability, who with their unceasing torrent of verbal heartburn proved that Archie Bunker could be mayor too. Then came the pioneering black mayors, who pioneered their cities into welfare dependency and corruption. The latest generation of fools are PR-driven frauds who look upon Taj Mahal stadiums and mammoth street festivals as the height of immortality, who seem bent on turning their towns into meccas for young rich neutered snobs, who live life with one perpetual phony smile, who think it is a grand achievement to get their cities NOTICED. They KNOW, even if they cannot or will not speak it, that unlike the great metropolises of yore, the New Yorks with their intellectual froth and the Chicagos with their bustling commerce, all the modern big city has to offer is grime and crime. No, mayors have always been fools, but now, as their cities sink into rubble beneath their hubris, their foolishness is becoming terminal.

Posted 3:11 PM by Gene

The home of THE FLYING KEYBOARD is in MOURNING because the career of the POET-LAUREATE OF DEEEEETROIT -- nay, the UNIVERSE -- may be coming to an end. To the six-digit suburb dwellers who prop their feet up on their desks to type doggie-doo like this monitor unseen, I say, go out into your city's streets, if you dare. DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETROIT burned to the ground a long time before this genius flamed out.

Posted 12:41 PM by Gene

Becoming America's biggest financial poker game, making crappy TV and movies, helping the Indians build nukes -- POWER PLANTS...all in a day's work for GE BANCORP.

Little Jeffy gets his MONEY'$ WORTH with DUBYA!

Posted 12:26 PM by Gene

Sad:

ROANOKE, Va. (AP) -- Wal-Mart has ditched a program that helped single shoppers find love in the discount store's aisles.

Officials at Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., ordered their Roanoke store to put an end to Singles Shopping, the only program of its kind at Wal-Mart's U.S. stores.

Taking a cue from Wal-Marts in Germany, the month-old program encouraged customers on Friday evenings to pick up a red bow they could place on their shopping carts as an invitation to other singles. "Flirt points" were set up in various sections of the store.

A Wal-Mart spokesman declined to comment on the reason behind the program's cancellation. But customer Dale Firebaugh, who showed up Friday night hoping to meet his match, said store employees told him several people had complained.

"I'm disappointed," said Firebaugh, 63. "Where can someone over 40 who doesn't smoke or drink or go to bars meet someone?"

Have you tried Kmart?

Posted 9:32 AM by Gene

Sen. Fatso Glub Glub had some of the LARD rendered from him at GITMO.

HUGE CAVEAT: These are two Washington Times reporters -- transcribed by NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 9:31 AM by Gene

Simon Pluess, spokesman for the World Food Program in Geneva, is a brutally honest man. "When a humanitarian crisis gets big play in the media," he says, "donations flow in. Otherwise, there is no reaction."

Time for another LIVE 8?!?!?

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

Don't these holy cockroaches like ANYBODY?

Posted 8:55 PM by Gene

Another chance for NEWS HACKS to be crusading and totally unironic:

Kerry Seeks Release of Roberts' Documents

HARDY-HAR-HAR!!!!!

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

Whatever happened to Randolph Scott,
Ridin' the train alone?
Whatever happened to Gene and Tex
And Roy and Rex, The Durango Kid...

AND LIVE 8?

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

Another burgeoning tactic of NEWS HACKS is to treat Democratic Congressional "hearings" as legitimate. Indeed CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGE CALLS this a "hearing." Of course we don't have to worry about hearing with NEWS HACKS. They can't hear anyway.

And to COMPOUND the propaganda ANOTHER of those @#$%&* NC.EUROSUNSA.COM ADS POPPED UP!

Posted 4:55 PM by Gene

The LALATIMES in the post-OMERTA age may be even worse than the LALATIMES in the OMERTA age. If THE EDWARD R. MURROW OF COMEDY is "going a little Nightline" (GOING?), what of the ad-blurb copywriter typing 1,142 WORDS about it?

Posted 4:50 PM by Gene

Our NEUHARTHISM-OF-THE-MONTH-AWARD-WINNING PANDA furrows the brows of ONE MUSIC LOVER:

R Kelly wrote:

I believe I can fly
I believe I can touch the sky

He belongs in jail for that, if for no other reason.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMEN!

Posted 2:40 PM by Gene

Guys, the next time PAUL DRECK advertises, could you at least ask him to PAY?

Posted 1:52 PM by Gene

So somebody calls CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES, and -- voila -- instant publicity!

In the old days these would have been called -- eccentrics. Today they're called -- HEROES.

A fool by any name is still a fool.

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

"He knew that excesses are being done to Muslims. Incidents like desecration of the Koran have always been in his mind."

Was TOILETBOWL RAG in on this too?

Posted 11:25 AM by Gene

It's not Longhorn, it's VISTA.

Either way it's still a BULL in a china shop.

Posted 11:22 AM by Gene

Three leaders in the congressional campaign to discourage Chinese oil company CNOOC Ltd.'s acquisition of Unocal Corp. accepted campaign contributions from rival suitor Chevron Corp. in recent weeks, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The lawmakers - Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla. - have been among the most vocal on Capitol Hill in criticizing CNOOC's proposed deal as anticompetitive and a threat to national security. The perception that Congress could delay or spike a CNOOC deal is viewed as a major factor in Unocal's decision to stick with Chevron despite its lower bid.

Well, at least they're not taking money from the CHINESE.

Who is?

Posted 11:10 AM by Gene

OMERTA goes out with BOTH PEA-SHOOTERS BLAZING:

I believe content had nothing to do with the circulation decline; if anything, the decline was mitigated by our content. Where does the blame lie? The list is long: 1. The scandal at Newsday, which prompted both our internal auditors and the Audit Bureau of Circulation to disallow certain types of sales that were previously considered legitimate. 2. The advent of the "do not call" list, which stymied our phone sales. 3. The reduction of the newspaper's cost base by more than $130 million annually, which cut the strength of marketing and promotion efforts, among others. 4. Issues on the business side that recently prompted the appointment of new directors of circulation and marketing. 5. And, of course, increased competition for readers' time. That's only a partial list.

TRANSLATION: I'm right and you're wrong. This DELUSIONAL ASS isn't finished in the NEWS BIZ. NEXT STOP: NEW YORK.

Posted 10:59 AM by Gene

VANITY FAIR LOST THE CASE!

They should NEVER have put LEW LAPHAM on the stand!

Oh well, for once we agree with that towering sycophant Gray: why the hell did this Humbert Humbert of the CI-NE-MA win?

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

I don't know who "nc.eurosunsa.com" is, but I've noticed quite a few of its annoying popups have blossomed on my computers -- despite IE.

BILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

We need to know most Web surfers are airheads?

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

And yes, Jimmy, hacks do sit at their boxes and "bore the world", but it's not just hacks, and it's not just newspapers.

Posted 8:12 AM by Gene

The longer an article on some arcane change in economic policy, the less anyone has the foggiest idea what it means.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

Google net rises more than fourfold

...and the shares went down $30 after hours.

PFFH-HH-HH!

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

People who do not submit to a search will be allowed to leave, but will not be permitted into the subway station. The police commissioner said officers would take pains to avoid singling people out for searches based on race or ethnicity.

"No racial profiling will be allowed," Mr. Kelly said. "It's against our policies. But it will be a systematized approach."

Honorary Mayor Mike is not serious. He'll search old ladies and babies, and be reelected in a landslide, and continue as the figurehead of the Big Apple.

Posted 11:38 AM by Gene

A deaf golfer will have one BIG advantage: he won't be thrown off by lummox fans yelling "YOU THE MAN!!!!!"

Posted 11:28 AM by Gene

Intense summer heat has killed 18 in Phoenix, 14 of whom may have been "homeless," and whom we wouldn't dare help because it might INFRINGE ON THEIR RIGHTS.

Including, we may presume, their RIGHT TO DIE.

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

Study Reveals 80% Of Americans Still Have Little Interest In Satellite Radio

Translation: ZONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN's gonna have a tough time selling KA-KA JOKES, WEE-WEE JOKES and BIG-BAZOOM JOKES.

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

JERNALISTS do it AGAIN:

An e-mail mistake by the Casey Journalism Center at the University of Maryland wrongly invited hundreds of journalists nationwide to the university's prestigious "Casey Medals" awards. The goof also launched a perpetual e-mail whirlwind as those who responded to the incorrect note unwittingly sent their feedback to everyone else on the recipient list.

HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

Posted 10:01 AM by Gene

Lieberman: Roberts Probably Not Extremist

You mean he won't engage in terrorist attacks?

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

ROMY's is having a big dust-up over OMERTA and his successor. There's no way you can get out a good paper with organization-man bean counters in the publisher's office on the one side, obsessing over inane detail while devising every last cheap reader-insulting trick they can to halt defections, and the TRUE BELIEVERS of the luxury news suites on the other, who will march as one off a cliff for the truth -- always their truth, almost always a LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC truth.

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

Sounds like kids, and possibly not very smart ones.

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

OH oh:

Dobson: 'Roberts Unquestionably Qualified'

Does that mean he's a big fan of JESUS SLASHER MOVIES?

Posted 6:03 PM by Gene

It's time to permalink to James Lileks!

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

Suspect in Bush grenade incident detained

To whom did he belong?

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

Now, that may be enough to get Washington all a bubble as of July 2005, but I would suggest that within a few years it will be as thoroughly forgotten as the question, "Who hired Craig Livingstone?" I say this as someone who tirelessly pressed that very question and who can no longer remember exactly why.

Yes, this is an "interesting" article.

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

Back to $500 quadrillion a share for eBay, sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

Gerry Thomas, inventor of the TV dinner, lazy slobs like me will ALWAYS be in your debt.

And tonight, in his honor, I ate a TV dinner.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Gulp! The DR. EVILS of the game biz changed the rating on that scuzzball entertainment to "Adults Only," which probably means more people will buy it than before.

Follow-up: Nope, I guess not; Take Two's "SUSPENDING PRODUCTION," according to GameSpot, which it should have done the moment it INTRODUCED THE GAME.

Now do we crib from the DR. EVIL playbook and release an UNRATED VERSION?

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

Computers and the Internet are complex things. The average user doesn't need to know everything about how it works any more than a driver needs to know what makes his car run.

Then again, cars don't give drivers cryptic error messages.

YET.

Posted 2:53 PM by Gene

Our Prognostication of the Year award goes to Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSBlog, who predicted Judge Roberts would be nominated -- LAST NOVEMBER!

Way to go, TOM!

Posted 2:43 PM by Gene

The stuff Daley doesn't know can fill a quarry

I'd say the odds of hizzoner being indicted just went UP.

"Daley's reputation is that he's a hands-on mayor, a detail mayor," U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., a possible mayoral challenger, told me. "But you just can't take all the credit when things go well, and then, when things don't go well, you know nothing."

You can't?

DEFINITELY.

Posted 2:13 PM by Gene

THE GRANDEST STOOGE OF JERNALISM'S AT IT AGAIN:

Editor's Note: The following story may contain spoilers. If you'd rather not know anything, stop reading now.

CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!), anytime you BREAK WIND out of your NEWS HOLE you SPOIL my DAY.

By the way, I've got a new motto for your voluminous -- output: IF YOU'D RATHER NOT KNOW ANYTHING, START READING NOW.

Posted 1:56 PM by Gene

NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD WINNER! Hua Hsu -- that sounds like a name for a panda bear. Something tells me most panda bears would disown this PIECE.

Posted 1:52 PM by Gene

You were a hero Ken, but you loony-leftists don't want to be heroes, NO -- YOU HAVE TO OPEN YOUR BIG, FAT MOUTHS.

The REUT gives this MORON a STANDING OVATION.

Posted 1:30 PM by Gene

OMERTA'S QUITTING!

Omerta may be gone but his CODE will live on.

Gray Davis thanks you, Little Michael thanks you, liberals everywhere thank you, and I thank you.

Some senior preacher at one of the JERNALISM THUMBSUCKERS calls OMERTA "one of the great editors, his editing came under fire for bogus reasons, blahblahblah," pretty well confirming he was a status-quo-endorsing liberal.

There's no doubt that the significance of journalism prizes can be overestimated....

Thirteen P-Ulitzers and declining circulation -- AMEN, BROTHER!

Posted 12:58 PM by Gene

This retired grocery clerk turned earl probably has more blue blood than most earls.

And if it's just blue ink it's still so.

Posted 12:10 PM by Gene

When the series ended in 1969, Doohan found himself typecast as Montgomery Scott, the canny engineer with a burr in his voice. In 1973, he complained to his dentist, who advised him: "Jimmy, you're going to be Scotty long after you're dead. If I were you, I'd go with the flow."

"I took his advice," said Doohan, "and since then everything's been just lovely."

Goodbye, Scotty, and happy voyages.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

All those employee discounts and STILL GM loses money. Can't these clunkers do anything RIGHT?

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

BIGMEDIA try yet again to put their fig leaf in a hothouse; but no matter what they do, it always SHRINKS.

P. S. ONE LINK in GoogleNews -- from the PR site VARIETY.COM.

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

Judge Roberts wrote the opinion for the Appeals Court in the infamous “French fry in the Metro station” case, in which a 12-year-old girl was handcuffed, stripped of her shoelaces and shoved into a windowless van because she at a McDonald’s fry at a Metro stop.

The idiocy of the Metro cops here in DC is well-known, and we Metro riders are heartened by the fact that Judge Roberts suggested in his opinion that the police were a bit overzealous. At the same time, Judge Roberts and his fellow jurists rejected the 12-year-old’s claim that being arrested in the first place was a violation of her Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Judge Roberts sided with those who argued that the District of Columbia has the right to have dopey, draconian laws and the right to enforce them in embarrassingly ham-fisted ways.

That’s good news all around.

It is?

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

OH oh:

President Bush last night nominated John G Roberts, a conservative judge who once wrote a legal opinion arguing against abortion rights....

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL.

And his WIFE was a PRO-LIFE ACTIVIST!!!!! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALPH!!!!! BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABS!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

What is with these ac-TORS? Cameron's an absolute airhead (and a decreasingly cute one at that), but you would think morons like this would know their sordid private lives can and will be used against them. But then these knuckleheads have even less sense than their puppetmasters.

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

You know, we're running out of ways to say, "Look, another horror remake" without repeating ourselves.

SO STOP REPEATING.

Posted 6:59 AM by Gene

Pity Suzanne Somers. There is no laugh track in a theater.

P. S. The CAST PARTY included this all-star line-up: "FRANKIE AVALON, LES MOONVES, JULIE CHEN, MARY BONO, ALAN SIMPSON, and ALAN HAMEL" [SIC]. Simpson used to be a Congressman, I think -- no relation to THE Simpsons, so far as I know -- and he was reduced to saying, "Before they check on Karl Rove, they ought to check on poor old BOB NOVAK" [SIC].

Bob's NOT poor, and he's six months older.

Posted 6:48 AM by Gene

Here we all think Dubya's obtuse, and he goes ahead and makes a fine choice that confounds his opponents.

Or did HE make it?

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

A textbook definition of psychosis:

The father of one of the hijackers who commandeered the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, praised the recent terror attacks in London and said many more would follow.

But a mental case who looks after his own:

When asked if he would allow a CNN crew to videotape another interview with him, el-Amir said he would give his permission -- for a price of $5,000.

That money, he said, would not be kept for himself, but would be donated to someone to carry out another terror attack.

El-Amir said that $5,000 was about how much it would cost to finance another attack in London.

It is CNN policy not to pay people for interviews.

TIME WARNER DIDN'T PAY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

P. S.

The security guard for the apartment building said el-Amir had been under surveillance by Egyptian agents for several months after the September 11 attacks, but no one had been watching him recently.

Someone should; soon he'll be walking the streets naked and setting fire to houses.

Posted 8:08 PM by Gene

And in other news of AAAAAAAAAATTITUDE, Larry Brown was NOT bought out.

Posted 8:04 PM by Gene

Williams cleared to report Sunday to Dolphins

How long before he says again, I WANT MY POT!?

Posted 8:00 PM by Gene

Prez has chosen somebody named Roberts, and conservatives are happy.

Get ready for a

FOOD FIGHT.

Posted 6:36 PM by Gene

Speaking of FAKE -- and SENATORS:

"In Washington, I work with boobs every day."

We know all about boobs, senator. That's how you and your fellow high priests view US. We know all about your sense of humor too: your funniest jokes came with THE KEATING FIVE.

And a big no-thank-you to THE DEWWWB for linking to this.

Posted 6:34 PM by Gene

So demoralized are we that we can't work up even the slightest anger over something like the last paragraph here; all we can do is think of the toadies surrounding show business, and their cries of PRUDE! and FIRST AMENDMENT!, and preening SENATORS working up FAKED OUTRAGE.

Posted 3:34 PM by Gene

I'm all for re-examining the death penalty as an all-purpose tool for miscreants, but why do the folks doing the re-examining ALWAYS have to do it for PC REASONS?

Posted 3:28 PM by Gene

What do this story about comic-book cultist imbeciles and this story about how movies are going to hell have in common?

Beats me.

P. S. Bill is rehearsing for a NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK award.

Posted 1:57 PM by Gene

Who wants to wager on an indictment for hizzoner the mayor of Chicago?

Posted 12:21 PM by Gene

HP may not be unloading Compaq, but it's getting there.

Posted 12:12 PM by Gene

Our favorite overbusted model's at it again:

Anna Nicole Smith continues to live up to her reputation as a party girl.

The former reality-TV star stunned crowds with her outrageous behavior in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina recently. "She entered a wet T-shirt contest at a club called Freaky Tiki and exposed herself and got into a loud fight with some guy everyone says is her boyfriend," a source tells The Scoop.

Fans were buzzing about Anna’s antics on her Web site. "I just want to tell all y'all out there in Anna land that all this stuff is true because I saw . . . it with my own 2 eyes!!!!!!!!" one person posted. [You may not have two eyes after seeing her. --ED.] "She is there with her boyfriend and his friends and family. She was wandering aimlessly around [a] house looking for [pills]. Her boyfriend kept telling her to quit."

Quit? NEVER!

Posted 12:03 PM by Gene

Roman Polanski was unable to tell the truth when it mattered, lawyers said on Tuesday in a libel trial in which the film director is testifying via video link from Paris.

The 71-year-old is suing publishers of Vanity Fair magazine for a 2002 article which alleged he tried to seduce a "Swedish beauty" while on the way to his slain wife's funeral in 1969....

Polanski has admitted in court to having sex with a woman within one month of Tate's death, and within four months of the murder seeking solace in sex with "nubile" teenagers from finishing school in Gstaad, Switzerland.

We may wonder if such hot stuff is capable of telling the truth.

Vanity Fair said the gist of the article is true, and intends to call LEWIS LAPHAM, the source of the Polanski anecdote, to the witness stand. Polanski denies it ever took place.

YOU'VE LOST THE CASE!

Posted 11:49 AM by Gene

Bush said to be close to Supreme Court decision

Wanna bet it's AG WHO? anyway?

Manuel Miranda, head of the Third Branch Conference, a coalition of about 200 conservative groups, said if [Judge Edith] Clement [a 5th Circuit judge and an allegedly leading name] is the nominee, "the president is playing it safe."

"Edith Clement has practically no paper trail," Miranda said, noting that she has been on the federal appeals court since only 2001.

"She is a conservative, and she would be acceptable," Miranda said. "But she doesn't have a clear record on a number of issues, and has caused some concerns on religious liberty issues."

Remember DAVID SOUTER? Be careful what you wish for....

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

America's most popular athlete-bully adds another NOTCH to his -- resume.

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

[Thomas L. Friedman] has fashioned a career out of locating or inventing a crude symbolic shorthand to explain and even popularize complex international phenomena while relying on a small cast of elites from politics, academia, and business to agree with his global clichés. But what started out as a clever decoding device has, in Friedman’s 10th year on the country’s most coveted op-ed real estate, become the crutch of a self-caricaturing hack.

Say bye-bye behind the WALL, Tommy!

Posted 8:06 AM by Gene

Hollywood assumes that slime is a reporter's middle name

THE POT....

Posted 6:33 AM by Gene

RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s wasting money on the Web too!

Posted 6:32 AM by Gene

MORE than a quarter of a million failed asylum-seekers are still living in Britain, despite the Government’s drive to increase the number of removals.

It would appear The Permanently Adolescent PM doesn't care much about this either.

Posted 6:26 AM by Gene

I think I see the M.O. for today: news hacks chirping and skipping and smiling, "WE LOST THE WAR IN VIETNAM! HA HA HA HA!!" But to quote again Ronald Reagan's stirring words, "There is a lesson for us all in Vietnam...let us tell those who fought that war that we will never again ask young men to fight and possibly die in a war that our government is afraid to let them win." Gen. Westmoreland may not have been the best commander, but it wasn't his fault.

Posted 8:34 PM by Gene

I'm sure we all feel quite sorry for you, JUNIOR, but tell us -- whatever happened to the guy who ran over your brother?

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

The ESRB...with all of the resources of the $10 billion video game industry at its disposal, still can't seem to figure it out. Or maybe they just don't want to. Or perhaps they aren't allowed to. Or perhaps they have but they're just not telling us. In light of the ESRB's utter failure to live up to its responsibilities in this fiasco, there are only two conclusions that can be reached:

- the ESRB has the most incompetent investigators this side of the Keystone Kops

or

- the ESRB's "watchdog" role is irretrievably compromised by their lack of accountability to anyone but the video game industry

or

- all of the above

Whichever answer you choose, this fatally flawed system must change.

Fat chance. DR. EVIL STILL RULES THE LAND.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

And speaking of show-biz, here's A GREAT CAREER MOVE:

Jude Law publicly apologized to his actress-fiancee, Sienna Miller, expressing his ''sincere regret'' over an affair with one of his children's nanny [SIC]....

Earlier this year, Miller said she and Law were in no hurry to tie the knot. "I'm not going to get married this year," she was quoted as telling reporters in February. "There's no rush, we're just happy to be engaged."

Take your time!

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

Hmmm, state pension funds are getting into REAL ESTATE!

Do I smell smoke?

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

Perhaps, Roger L. Simon, this explains the demise of an "indie" movie:

It's easy to get fooled by the surface of Kwik Stop—the semi-deadpan tone to some scenes; the debt to road-movie iconography—you think that you've seen its like before. It takes a while to realize that this is a road movie in which nobody goes anywhere—at least nowhere they want to go.

We've seen it before, and nobody goes anywhere. Sounds like a scintillating movie! For the umpteenth time, guys, MOVIES STINK because our culture stinks, our education stinks, our shores aren't being flooded by brilliant immigrants, it isn't a new medium anymore -- and we've all become too self-centered for inspiration to happen, except for STINKIER MOVIES.

Posted 3:20 PM by Gene

OH oh, rumblings from ROMY again -- and from the upper clouds of ST. WARREN'S HEAVEN:

"Why did we promise limited confidentiality to someone who we knew, or had strong reason to believe, was continuing to commit crimes, and what role did the fact that we were preparing to write a story about him have in egging him on to even more spectacular feats? What are our obligations as journalists and citizens in a situation like this?"

I don't know what obligations you have as citizens -- seems to me your only obligations are to hog the limelight and the dough -- but I do know as JERNALISTS you're SUPPOSED to be APPRECIATIVE of ART.

Or as the omBUUUUUUUUDSman BURPS:

Some people simply don't like feature stories about alleged criminals, terrorists, insurgents or other miscreants because they feel such stories often are "sympathetic" or "glorify" the subject or deed.

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, could be!

Posted 3:04 PM by Gene

Another one of the PAPER OF RE-CORD's show-biz spinmeisters insists the Christian audience is jes folks -- they watch the same crappy movies everyone else does.

I can believe it -- many of them are con-SER-va-tive -- but I have trouble believing a factotum for Reed Elsevier, the company that publishes the weekly press-release anthology VARIETY. I also have trouble believing him when his division's Web site lists the LATEST VARIETY headlines -- ALL FROM MID-MARCH.

Posted 1:05 PM by Gene

Ten days after Islamic radicals carried out deadly attacks on the London transport system, Britain's largest Sunni Muslim group on Sunday issued a binding religious edict, a fatwa, condemning the July 7 suicide bombings as the work of a "perverted ideology."

Well, MAYBE we won't have to think that.

Posted 1:00 PM by Gene

Two questions:

1. How long will NEWS HACKS play up this story to force a groupthink-suitable APOLOGY?

2. What IF HOLY COCKROACHES DO nuke us?

Posted 11:14 AM by Gene

Meantime, while news hacks gleefully spread THAT profound truth, we learn three of the HOLY COCKROACHES of LONDON visited PAKISTAN.

Y'all come back now, hear?

Posted 10:27 AM by Gene

THE REUT DOES IT AGAIN:

Backing the United States in Iraq has put Britain more at risk from terror attacks, an influential British think tank said Monday....

"The U.K. is at particular risk because it is the closest ally of the United States," the security experts said in the report from the Royal Institute of International Affairs, commonly known here as Chatham House.

OR:

Here returned to print, at a timely moment in history, is Elie Kedourie's classic study of the Middle East in modern times. In analyzing British failures in the region during the zenith of their power and influence, Mr. Kedourie attributes much of Britain's faulty and disastrous handling of Middle East problems to what he calls "the Chatham House version." It was a view of Middle Eastern history and politics propounded and propagated in the various publications of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (known popularly as Chatham House), written or edited by Arnold Toynbee. The episodes that Mr. Kedourie investigates show "successive and cumulative manifestations of illusion, misjudgment, maladroitness, and failure." Together they point up hard lessons for the Bush administration or any outside power that would intervene in Middle Eastern affairs.

BIG CAVEAT: Amazon.com features endorsements from the usual gang of idiots. That said, I'd sooner trust a publisher's spiel than THE REUT.

P. S. A New Criterion "Note" on the book.

Posted 10:20 AM by Gene

The audience composition of NETWORK TELEVISION'S GREATEST SERIES EVER would make for an interesting story. Instead MORT ZUCK earns a NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD for running a PLUG -- in a MOST DUBIOUS WAY.

Posted 10:11 AM by Gene

But retailers also began to lower their prices almost immediately and in one case offered earlier customers partial refunds, signaling that millions of copies remain available in bookstores, warehouses and used-book outlets.

TRANSLATION: I think there'll be an awful lot of RECYCLING going on soon!

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

This remarkable article (remarkable for having run in the LALATIMES -- and for having RUN AT ALL) and Mr. Pipes's blast of the BRITS have something in common: they point to an unwillingness to tackle menaces in society for no better reason than that we may HURT somebody. [C]RAPPERS are "cockroaches." There's an analogy! Okay, so how do we take care of cockroaches? With LITERACY. So we educate ourselves in cockroaches, know the various breeds, how they procreate, how many baby cockroaches they breed, where they live, where they eat, where they go to the toilet, how often they go to the toilet, how they spread diseases by going to the toilet, maybe we even begin to try to UNDERSTAND them -- and meantime while we're busy doing all this LITERACY our living space CRAWLS WITH COCKROACHES. The Brits did the same thing with THEIRS, and look what it got them -- 55 dead in London. So long as we take the attitude that we should confront evil with the equivalent of homeopathy, administered in a spirit of abject apology, we can expect the inevitable "PAYBACK."

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

The SUN-TIMES honors a BIG PROFIT CENTER!

And a THUMBS UP for all those THUMBS UP!

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

The FRENCH -- strong on TERRORISM?!?

Sacre bleu!

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

In New York State, when it comes to health coverage for the poor, to quote Ronald Reagan, wehell, I guess we've HIT THE JACKPOT.

[A]fter being informed of The Times's findings, the Republican majority in the State Senate began a push recently to overhaul the system intended to protect Medicaid, which has been sharply reduced even as Gov. George E. Pataki and lawmakers have nearly doubled the program's budget over the last decade. The Democratic majority in the Assembly has remained on the sidelines. So has Mr. Pataki.

On the sidelines? HE'S RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT!!

"Got a Medicaid card?" one of the men shouted one day last November. "Come in and get your free CD player right now!"

Hey Dubya! That's an idea! (Brand names only, please.)

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

And here I think USAOKAY!!!!!'s becoming decent -- I've linked to it three times thus far -- and here they go and run their typical PR and more PR.

NEUHARTHISM LIVES. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech.

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

We can eternally hope for the moderate Muslim to win out, but when (survey says) a quarter of Islam in six countries likes kabooming civilians, it must remain -- a hope.

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

Before -- convention centers. Now -- AIRPORT TERMINALS.

Who gets bankrupted first?

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

The Einsteins who unleashed their social engineering on us these last few decades have made it much more likely kids will grow up as basket cases.

But that's what social engineering is all about -- so it can SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS.

The USA has the lowest percentage among Western nations of children who grow up with both biological parents, 63%, the report says.

I wonder if the TWIN TOWERS of QUACKDOM, psychologists and NEWS HACKS, can find a silver lining in THAT.

Posted 8:17 PM by Gene

Diane Disney Miller was there. Art Linkletter was there. The Governator was there.

WAS COMPANY FOUNDER MICKEYMOUSE NIXON THERE?

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

WALTER "SPYWARE" WINCHELL GETS HIS REVENGE!!!!!!!!!!

I'd be careful though about throwing out those buggy computers. Unless you remove the hard drive you may have something worse than mere spyware -- like an invitation to identity theft.

Posted 3:43 PM by Gene

The Congresspoops' favorite fuel has a -- side effect:

Farmers, businesses and state officials are investing millions of dollars in ethanol and biofuel plants as renewable energy sources, but a new study says the alternative fuels burn more energy than they produce.

I don't know -- doesn't all the GAS they produce equal the score?

Posted 3:34 PM by Gene

When a new Jack or Bob or Mike station enters a market, there tends to be a spike in ratings. But according to a new study by the ratings service Arbitron and Edison Media Research, Jack and Bob face two problematic trends. At many such stations the audience size has diminished as the novelty of the format wears off, and the time each person spends listening to the station - an important statistic for advertisers - is fairly low, suggesting that people tune in for the fun of the songs but tune out in a short time for what other stations offer: on-air personalities and local news, perhaps.

"What you end up with is a lifeless station," said Robert Unmacht, a consultant at iN3 Partners in Nashville.

Or in CHEAP CHANNEL speak:

WE DON'T MAKE MONEY FROM ANNOUNCERS! WE MAKE MONEY FROM ADS! WHO CARES IF THE STATION'S LIFELESS -- SO LONG AS THERE'S LIFE IN THEM ADS!!!!!

Posted 3:25 PM by Gene

OH oh, in Useless News' mammoth plug for JKCORP the man who says unadulterated TIME WARNER is a PANACEA may not be as GUNG-HO as he USED to be:

[N]ew forms of media undoubtedly have some benefits, says Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad Is Good for You. Video games improve problem-solving skills; TV shows promote mental gymnastics by forcing viewers to follow intertwining story lines. But books offer experience that can't be gained from these other sources, from building vocabulary to stretching the imagination. "If they're not reading at all," says Johnson, "that's a huge problem."

You mean they can't stretch their imaginations with HOT COFFEE?!?!?

Posted 1:12 PM by Gene

I'm not sure I appreciate megachurches. To me they're not so much about God as cheerleading: the loud bad music, the video screens and walls, the production values, the pep-rally chants, the "preachers" screaming at the top of their lungs an anodyne gospel that is less Jesus than prosperity, and less the Bible's word than Dale Carnegie's. Robert "Touchy-Feely" Schuller runs one of the biggest megachurches, but its smiley face and happy attitudes somehow did not prevent the pastor from getting into an impromptu religious war with a flight attendant, or his musical director from barricading himself in an office and killing himself. I wonder if the hordes who attend megachuches leave their "services" any different than they entered, or if it's just some sort of easy way to get 100 percent of your spiritual vitamins -- Total for the soul.

P. S. Who sits in the luxury boxes?

P. P. S. Yes yes, I know, Billy Sunday did the same thing; he had Al Jolson help him out. Who remembers Billy Sunday as anything but the leading begetter of Prohibition and a fount of catch phrases?

Posted 1:09 PM by Gene

A New Joysey Congresspoop apologizies for opening his big fat trap and teeny tiny brain about Hitler, the whole episode suggesting firmly THE INCOMPETENCE IN WASHINGTON IS NOW TOTAL.

Posted 1:05 PM by Gene

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES. We can no longer expect serious, adult news coverage from anyone. All we get are the three P's -- POUTING, PUFFERY AND PIFFLE.

Posted 11:51 AM by Gene

We should not be surprised foreigners may be behind the housing bubble. After all, this wouldn't be the first time they've wasted their money on our real estate. Ask the JAPANESE.

Posted 11:22 AM by Gene

I have not paid much mind to the Grand Theft Auto controversy figuring it was just another excuse for SENATORS to preen, and as such would hand a silver-platter victory to the biz, but I've a hunch Take Two did it on purpose, much as VIACON did Ms. Boob's stunt on purpose, and if a great video-game company's forced to go under -- well, tough bupkis. Not that it will, but it's nice to dream.

As for the notion hackers did it, this is disingenuous; practically any digital device or software can be privately hacked, and if anyone video-game cretins -- er, creators surely know that, further strengthening the notion somebody did this on purpose.

Amazing too that a game famous for encouraging crime should get in trouble over sex. But that's SENATORS.

P. S. When choosing between the honorable and the dishonorable thing, SHOW-BIZ TYPES ALWAYS CHOOSE THE DISHONORABLE.

P. P. S. I've added GameSpot News to my favorites list.

Posted 10:25 AM by Gene

The CONSPIRACY and BILL: potentially the greatest partnership since HITLER and STALIN.

Of course Hitler invaded Russia. These folk are shrewder.

Posted 9:20 AM by Gene

I suppose this is a new star, and I suppose she's conventionally pretty, but there's something about this face -- or at least this face in this photo -- that's off-putting. Maybe it's the vague resemblance to THE MAN, but it's more than that. To repeat myself, the great faces of the past had...something. Consider: this starlet's blonde, and pretty (I suppose), but think MM, and all comparison ends. If this is the best H-wood can do, maybe it should stick to pro-terrorist propaganda.

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

Even when Paul Allen wins, he loses.

So poor is Allen's investment record that in recent years he has become better known for losing one-third of his $30 billion net worth than he has for co-founding Microsoft.

Hold on to your wallet, BUGMEISTER BILL!

And this zillionaire schlepp co-financed DREAMWORKS KGB. That's not looking so hot either.

Posted 9:06 AM by Gene

Awwww, pohw fewwow, dey're bwinging chahwges against him!

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

ANOTHER HOLLYWOOD HERO SPEAKS:

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

What can be done about the Hollywood brain? And where are those Martian attackers when you really need them?

Answer to the first question: SURGERY; answer to the second question -- GOOD QUESTION!

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

And of course, what issue of TOILETBOWL would be complete without our star multi-millionaire columnist showing his PATRIOTISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

TOILETBOWL expresses an opinion:

Do you know anyone who doesn't have an opinion about the war in Iraq? Anyone who doesn't believe it's either wonderfully noble or tragically foolish? Then you may be surprised by "Over There," a new drama series that debuts July 27. It's about a squad of American soldiers on the front lines in Iraq, and it bends over backward not to express any opinion whatsoever about the conflict. You can understand the kid-gloves approach, since "Over There" —unlike "M*A*S*H" or "China Beach"—is about an ongoing conflict, and a controversial one. But there's something odd about a war drama with no point of view other than praising the grunts in the field. Without a strong perspective, "Over There" turns out to be largely bloodless.

Speak for yourself! TOILETBOWL bends over backward to appear bloodless, but it has an opinion -- it has the same opinion, week after week after week. Our brave writer may have been trying to put a fine face on his magazine, but beneath it, we know what lurks -- A DIRTY TOILET.

P. S. For the millionth time -- RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is NOT a CONSERVATIVE.